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Why is Rick Perry associating himself with dangerous religious extremists?

I hate having to write blog entries like this; mainly, because I happen to like Rick Perry. However, because I am a blogger of the truth — and because I do not want to see Rick Perry wounded in the election. I am bringing this point up.

On this day, the Lord’s messengers arrived in the form of two Texas pastors, Tom Schlueter of Arlington and Bob Long of San Marcos, who called on Perry in the governor’s office inside the state Capitol. Schlueter and Long both oversee small congregations, but they are more than just pastors. They consider themselves modern-day apostles and prophets, blessed with the same gifts as Old Testament prophets or New Testament apostles.

The pastors told Perry of God’s grand plan for Texas. A chain of powerful prophecies had proclaimed that Texas was “The Prophet State,” anointed by God to lead the United States into revival and Godly government. And the governor would have a special role.

The day before the meeting, Schlueter had received a prophetic message from Chuck Pierce, an influential prophet from Denton, Texas. God had apparently commanded Schlueter—through Pierce—to “pray by lifting the hand of the one I show you that is in the place of civil rule.”

Gov. Perry, it seemed.

Schlueter had prayed before his congregation: “Lord Jesus I bring to you today Gov. Perry. … I am just bringing you his hand and I pray Lord that he will grasp ahold of it. For if he does you will use him mightily.”

And grasp ahold the governor did. At the end of their meeting, Perry asked the two pastors to pray over him. As the pastors would later recount, the Lord spoke prophetically as Schlueter laid his hands on Perry, their heads bowed before a painting of the Battle of the Alamo. Schlueter “declared over [Perry] that there was a leadership role beyond Texas and that Texas had a role beyond what people understand,” Long later told his congregation.

Nothing wrong with that right? A couple of Ministers praying over someone right?

Well, it’s not the praying that is the problem; it’s the people doing the praying that is the problem.

This is the part of the story published that caught my eyes:

Some of the fiercest critics of the New Apostolic Reformation come from within the Pentecostal and charismatic world. The Assemblies of God Church, the largest organized Pentecostal denomination, specifically repudiated self-proclaimed prophets and apostles in 2000, calling their creed a “deviant teaching” that could rapidly “become dictatorial, presumptuous, and carnal.”

Assemblies authorities also rejected the notion that the church is supposed to assume dominion over earthly institutions, labeling it “unscriptural triumphalism.”

The New Apostles talk about taking dominion over American society in pastoral terms. They refer to the “Seven Mountains” of society: family, religion, arts and entertainment, media, government, education, and business. These are the nerve centers of society that God (or his people) must control.

Asked about the meaning of the Seven Mountains, Schlueter says, “God’s kingdom just can’t be expressed on Sunday morning for two hours. God’s kingdom has to be expressed in media and government and education. It’s not like our goal is to have a Bible on every child’s desk. That’s not the goal. The goal is to hopefully have everyone acknowledge that God’s in charge of us regardless.”

But climbing those mountains sounds a little more specific on Sunday mornings. Schlueter has bragged to his congregation of meetings with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, state Sen. Brian Birdwell, and the Arlington City Council. He recently told a church in Victoria that state Rep. Phil King, a conservative Republican from Weatherford, had allowed him to use King’s office at the Capitol to make calls and organize.

“We’re going to influence it,” Schlueter told his congregation. “We’re going to infiltrate it, not run from it. I know why God’s doing what he’s doing … He’s just simply saying, ‘Tom I’ve given you authority in a governmental authority, and I need you to infiltrate the governmental mountain. Just do it, it’s no big deal.’ I was talking with [a member of the congregation] the other day. She’s going to start infiltrating. A very simple process. She’s going to join the Republican Party, start going to all their meetings. Some [members] are already doing that.”

Okay, time to bust out with my Christian credentials here. As most of you know, who read this blog. I am a Born-Again Christian. but, I do not wear it on my sleeve really anymore. I have been “saved,” as the Christian World calls it, for 29 years. 21 of those years was spent in the Pentecost movement or type of Churches. I spent nine and a half years of that time in a Assembly of God Church in Southwest Detroit. So, believe me when I tell you; when it comes to this subject, I know full well, of what I speak.

When the Assembles of God denounces a group like this one here; believe me, it is for a very good reason. These people are kooks and I mean really, really, really bad kooks. The Assemblies of God in the spectrum of the Pentecostal movement are some of the most Conservative —- theologically speaking — Churches and people in the Pentecostal movement. These kooks that Rick Perry are hanging with, in that same spectrum, are the more progressive or radical kind. These people make people like Benny Hinn, Rod Parsley and the many others look like boy scouts!

What I am basically trying to say is this; and I hope like the dickens that someone sees this and advises Rick Perry on it — Rick Perry, if he wants to be elected President of the United States of America, needs to put as much daylight between these people and himself as he possibly can. These people are the Christian equivalent of say, the Muslim brotherhood; except maybe they do not try to kill people. What they do want to do is this; they want to rip out the United States Constitution and have a Government that dictates its laws from the Bible. The problem with that is this; the United States of America was not founded as a Christian dictatorship, it was founded as a Constitutional Republic.

This group of people who Rick Perry is hanging with are a part of the radical, extreme Christian Right. If Rick Perry thinks that the left and the liberal media will not savage him for this sort of association; he, with all due respect to the man and the office that he now holds — is crazy.

During the 2008 election, the right — including myself —- utterly brutalized then candidate Barack Obama for his radical and Anti-American Religious affiliations. I feel, that what is fair, is fair. Because I am not entrenched in partisanship, I believe that Rick Perry should either give an account of why he is associated with these people or disassociate himself from them. As much as I know that the White House is now occupied by radical leftists — both former and current cabinet and staff members. I just do not believe that putting in a radical Christian Right President and cabinet is the answer to that problem.

We need a strong fiscal Conservative in the White House to bring this Nation back to its rightful place. We do not need some radical Religious nut-job in the White House. Lord knows, we had eight good years of that, and look what it got us. I say that as someone who suffered through those eight years. Also too, Do not think that I say this as a Fundamentalist Baptist with a “hard on” against Pentecostals. This is someone who has been around in the Christian world for a LONG TIME and I have seen what those people believe, and even as Pentecostals; they as nutty as they come.

In closing: Rick Perry needs to do the proper and right thing; or he should forget about running for President.